Major beverage company launches social campaign to refresh communities

Pepsi’s Refresh Project is a new campaign based on social-cause marketing, the program is simple and user-friendly, basically if you have an idea on how to better your community, share it and get people to vote.

In theory the Refresh Project is similar to American Express and NBC Universal’s 2009 Shine a Light competition, except Pepsi’s campaign is open to individuals, businesses and non-profits with ideas that fall under one of the these categories: health, arts & culture, food & shelter, the plant, neighborhoods and education and millions of dollars will be granted to winning ideas at the beginning of every month.

The project’s site RefreshEverything.com began accepting ideas in mid-January and voting just opened on February 1, by March 1 the first round of winning ideas will be granted. Each month 32 grants are distributed, 10 for $5,000; 10 for $25,000; 10 for $50,000 and 2 for $250,000 totaling 1.3 million dollars (715,000 Euros).

There are a few exclusion rules for idea submissions: must be at least 13 years old, your idea has to benefit a US community and needs to be actionable with a measurable outcome. Everyone can vote and the site offers a unique perspective for each category with The Refresh Project Ambassadors and their blogs.